An old school toilet is not a typical mode of transport on which to hit the high seas but that did not deter friends Alex Craig and Paul Graham from giving it a go. The duo crossed the stretch of ocean between Cape Jervis and Kangaroo Island on a homemade barge complete with an outhouse and a barbecue. The apparent brazen act of Aussie larrikinism was actually a solution to a problem. “Alex has a block over on Kangaroo Island and he needed a site toilet,” Mr Graham told 891 ABC Adelaide. “The portaloos were way too expensive so we just made one.” The journey, which took place in May 2025, took four hours to complete. “It was treacherous,” Mr Graham said. The journey typically takes 45-minutes aboard the SeaLink ferry from Cape Jervis to Penneshaw. “We were being adventurous,” Mr Graham said. “And a little bit of ‘we’re not paying for the ferry’ because to take the toilet over was more than $2,000, plus building it.” (via ABC News)
Switzerland adds solar panels to train tracks to create miles of power generation
The space between railroad tracks doesn’t usually do much of anything. But in a tiny village in Switzerland, Swiss inventors have spent the last year proving it can be used to generate clean electricity. In April 2025, Swiss startup Sun-Ways installed 48 solar panels along a 330-foot stretch of active railway in Buttes, Switzerland. It is the first removable solar power plant on a working rail line anywhere in the world. The patented panels were designed to sit between the rails and can be easily removed whenever crews need to do track maintenance. Now, just over a year into their three-year pilot project, the results are in: More than 11,000 trains have rolled directly over the panels at speeds up to 55 mph, and the installation has remained stable, safe, and productive. Since May 2025, the 330-foot-long installation has produced more than 16,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity despite a month-long pause for snow. (via Good Good Good)
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Some dementia patients suddenly return to normal just before they die
In the spring of 2000, while completing his degree in psychology at the University of Vienna, Alexander Batthyany received an unusual call from his mother. She had just gotten off the phone with Batthyany’s grandmother. “I do not know what happened — but you should call,” his mother told him. “Somehow, she’s back again.” Batthyany was confused: His grandmother, who lived in a nursing home in Switzerland, had vascular dementia and, for the past year, had hardly been able to speak — let alone pick up the phone and initiate a conversation. He dialed his grandmother’s number. When she answered, it was in the refined, elegant German he remembered her speaking in his childhood. His grandmother greeted him affectionately. She told him that for the past few months, she hadn’t really been herself. One day he came across a paper in The Journal of Near-Death Studies that said the phenomenon had been largely forgotten since the 19th century. The researcher called it “terminal lucidity.” (via the NYT)
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
He was trying to breed better honey bees for Brazil but he created a race of killer bees
In 1957, twenty six African queen honey bees slipped out of an experimental apiary in Brazil. In reality, it was the start of an extraordinary bee-voyage, one that would reshape beekeeping, stir controversy on ecology and carry the bees across an entire hemisphere before they reached the United States as Africanized honey bees, better known as “killer bees.” The story begins not with a swarm but with a scientist and self-declared socialist who was trying to help poor Brazilian farmers in the tropics for better honey production at the instruction of the government. Brazilian geneticist Warwick Estevam Kerr believed European honey bees were poorly suited to Brazil’s tropical climate. African honey bees, by contrast, had evolved in similar environments and were known for their productivity. Kerr bought 63 from South Africa and Tanzania, hoping to breed a hybrid that would retain the African bees’ resilience while inheriting the calmer temperament of European honey bees. (via The Economic Times)
For thousands of years women were in charge of brewing beer and other spirits
The word “alewife” is first recorded in England in 1393 to mean “a woman that keeps an ale-house”, synonymous with the word “brewster”. Alewife is now commonly used in translations of ancient texts to refer to any woman who brewed and sold ale dating back to the beginning of recorded history. Although the profession was later taken over by men, the original brewing profession back in ancient Mesopotamia was principally performed by women. The character of Siduri in the Epic of Gilgamesh appears as a divine alewife. Women also brewed the majority of ale for both domestic and commercial use in England before the Black Death, and some women continued brewing into the 17th century. Ale represented a key part of the medieval English diet as it was both the most affordable and clean beverage available. Public records in the medieval period include regulatory legislation that treats brewing as a solely female profession, which likely evolved because it could be done in the home, supplemented other incomes, and was passed down from previous generations. (via Wikipedia)
Quarterback Drew Brees threw 10 footballs and hit the bullseye with every single one
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com